It’s December, which means the time that I set aside my Autumnal horror and thriller books of months past in favour of some cozy, comforting seasonal reads! If you also like to theme your reading by season, I’ve picked out some great wintry seasonal sapphic reads. Some of these are Christmas-themed, I’ve got a couple of Hanukkah ones, but I wasn’t able to find any other wintry holiday sapphic books. If you know of any, including queer Kwanzaa or Diwali reads, let me know in the comments! I also have ones that are just general snowy reads that would be perfect to curl up with under a blanket.
This video is sponsored by a Kobo exclusive mystery, Murder Most Actual by Alexis Hall, which is a sapphic snowed-in murder mystery! More on that at the end of the post.
Fantasy Books with a Winter Setting
The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett
This book is set in a world with two kingdoms: an underwater kingdom with mermaids, and a winter kingdom on top of the frozen lake.
It’s a political fantasy about one of the duke’s daughters, who is the only one who has survived a curse. She takes on the title of duke, trying to prevent war and keep the kingdom together.
This is supposed to be part “Sleeping Beauty,” part “Anastasia,” but it’s that permanent winter setting—and that title—that earns it a spot on this list. It also has an F/F romance.
Check out the Lesbrary review for more information!
This is a Swedish fairy tale retelling with a “Snow Queen” element to it, and you can tell just from the cover that this is a wintry fantasy book.
The main character is a thief who accidentally robs a witch and ends up teaming up with her to try to go kill the snow queen and save the witch’s brother.
This is one of a few fairy tale retellings on this list, so if you want a YA fantasy retelling of “The Snow Queen” with an F/F romance, this will be one for you.
The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher
And for another sapphic “Snow Queen” retelling, there’s The Raven and the Reindeer!
This is about Greta, who is trying to rescue her childhood friend from the snow queen, but along the way, she meets a bandit princess and teams up with her.
There’s also a talking raven and flying otters, so obviously you have to pick this one up.
Check out the Lesbrary review for more information!
This is another fairy tale retelling, but this time it’s “Beauty and the Beast”! This is also the same author of the Compass Rose series, so if you like sapphic pirates as well—and why wouldn’t you you?—you can check out that series, too.
This is set in a world of constant winter, and the Beast is the Huntress, who is a literal ice queen and also has a pack of hounds—which I can’t resist.
It includes an iconic Beauty and the Beast library scene, and I am also promised that there is an ice bear in this. What could be better than sapphic books that also have flying otters and ice bears?
Check out the Lesbrary review for more information!
Wintry and Holiday Romances
I am so excited to read this one this month! I cannot resist the forced proximity trope, but especially snowed in romances. I love a snowed in story, and that’s what this is.
Catherine is excited to spend her whole winter alone in her mountain cabin, but then someone gets lost and seeks refuge with her, and they get snowed in together.
Obviously, Jennifer and Catherine end up getting really close, but after the two months they spent together, Jennifer goes back to her normal life and the man who wants to marry her… and she doesn’t actually know Catherine’s real name.
It seems like a lot of this story will be more about how they get back to each other, but I’m so excited for the snowed in setting.
Check out the Lesbrary review for more information!
Another snowed in love story! There are actually two books by Shira Glassman on this list, because she is giving the sapphic what they want.
This is a novella that takes place at an all-state school band competition. A mom of one of the students, who is newly out, falls for the butch orchestra teacher.
It’s also about finding your way back to music after a long time away. This is a short, super cute read.
Check out the Lesbrary reviews for more information!
Do You Feel What I Feel: A Holiday Anthology edited by Jae and Fletcher Delancey
This is just what it says on the tin: it’s 12 lesbian fiction authors who are writing holiday-themed short stories.
Most of these are Christmas romances, but there is at least one Hanukkah story. They’re not all Christmas, and they’re not all romances, but that’s the general theme.
This is also a good way to get a sampling of a bunch of lesfic authors’ writing, and most of them have other books that you can check out if you like these stories.
If you know me, you know that I love dogs. I have two dogs that I adore, and I’d have a pack if I could. So obviously, I couldn’t resist this F/F romance that is both Christmas-themed and dog-themed!
I feel like the title and cover alone are enough to sell you on this book, but just in case: this is about Madison, whose girlfriend died a year earlier and she was left with her girlfriend’s puppy. Because of her grief, she wasn’t really able to train this puppy the way that she wanted to, and now the dog is kind of a mess. So she reaches out to a dog trainer, Ashley.
Unbeknownst to her, Ashley actually has zero experience training dogs. She’s never even had a dog. But she managed to interview very well, apparently, because that’s her job now.
This is a cute F/F romance set in New Orleans that takes place over the holidays—and “Collie Jolly”! Come on. You can’t resist that.
Mangoes and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrera
This is a holiday baking competition F/F romance, which checks so many boxes for me.
It takes place in Scotland, and one of them calls herself a “baking brujita”! There’s a bit of a grumpy one/sunshine one dynamic between these two, because they are thrown together into competing as a pair.
This is a cute novella for fans of The Great British Bake Off and other baking competition shows.
Check out the Lesbrary review for more information!
The last Christmas romance on this list is Being Merry by Meka James. Lennox has been guilt-tripped by her sister into helping out someone who is moving to the city and doesn’t have a place to stay yet, so she is staying in her spare room for the moment.
What Lennox doesn’t know when she agrees to it is that Noelle–yes, Noelle!–is absolutely obsessed with Christmas. She shows up in a reindeer headband, and is trying to win Lennox over to being one of the extremely festive people like she is.
So this has a bit of that forced proximity, but also the dynamic between the Grinch and the very enthusiastically Christmas person. This sounds like a super fun romance read.
If you want even more Christmas sapphic books, check out this Goodreads list of over 100 titles!
Hanukkah Erotica
Eight Kinky Nights by Xan West
There are two sapphic Hanukkah erotica novels that I know of.
The first is Eight Kinky Nights, which is about two 50 year olds, one a stone butch and one a queer femme, and a series of kink lessons that take place over the eight nights of Hanukkah.
There’s also asexual and pansexual representation, as well as fat autistic and disabled rep.
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Eitan’s Chord by Shira Glassman
The second Hanukkah erotica story I found, and also the second title by Shira Glassman on this list, is Eitan’s Chord.
This is about three fairies and their magical threesome to grant Hanukkah wishes, which is just an amazing sentence to be able to type.
They’re doing this to help out Eitan, who is a trans man, and his cis wife Abigail. They basically need a miracle to make ends meet, and these fairies are here to help.
This is, I believe, not quite a novella—it’s a short story. If you know of any other sapphic Hanukkah stories, please let me know in the comments!
Wintry Mysteries
Watching Over Her by Ronica Black
While I love a snowed in romance, it’s also the perfect setting for a mystery.
This is another story about two women who are strangers and get snowed in together in a cabin. This time, it’s Riley who’s gone to the cabin to try to be by herself and spend the winter there.
Zoe, on the other hand, is dealing with a stalker, and she intends to also hide herself away for a while. But when she arrives at her grandfather’s cabin, it turns out that no one has been there for many years, and it’s fallen into dangerous disrepair.
Zoe knows that there’s a snowstorm coming and that she needs to be somewhere safe, so Riley and Zoe end up staying together in Riley’s cabin.
It’s not just a romance between the two of them, though, because there is also the ongoing threat of Zoe’s stalker, and as the snow closes in, there’s nowhere for them to run.
Magic, Murder, and Mistletoe by Ellen Jane
If you want your mysteries with a touch of the fantasy genre, this one is perfect for you.
When the Earl of Denbigh is killed by magical means, suspicions fall on the only two magic users in the area: Heather and Sinéad. These strangers are thrown together to try to prove their innocence–and catch the real killer.
There’s a slight hiccup in their newfound partnership, though: Heather is witch, and Sinéad is a sorcerer–these two kinds of magic are like oil and water.
Making it even more difficult, someone is sabotaging their investigation, and time is running out to clear their names.
This is a cozy F/F paranormal mystery romance set at Christmas!
I love winter mysteries—especially snowed in mysteries, obviously—but unfortunately, I don’t see many sapphic ones. I did read one other one, 1222 by Anne Holt, but I didn’t love that one, especially because of the racial representation, which I thought it was questionable. I’m always on the lookout for more sapphic mystery books that have that wintry element, which is why I’m so excited that this video was brought to you by the Kobo exclusive title Murder Most Actual by Alexis Hall! (Description from the publisher.)
Murder Most Actual by Alexis Hall
From the author of Boyfriend Material and Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake comes a cozy mystery that revisits the Golden Age of detective fiction, starring a heroine who’s more podcaster than private eye and topped with a lethal dose of parody — perfect for fans of Clue, Knives Out, and Only Murders in the Building!
When up-and-coming true crime podcaster Liza and her corporate financier wife Hanna head to a luxurious hotel in the Scottish Highlands, they’re hoping for a chance to rekindle their marriage – not to find themselves trapped in the middle of an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery with no way home. But who better to take on the case than someone whose entire profession relies on an obsession with all things mysterious and macabre? Though some of her fellow guests may consider her an interfering new media hack, Liza knows a thing or two about crime and – despite Hanna’s preference for waiting out the chaos behind a locked door – might be the only one capable of discovering the killer. As the bodies rack up and the stakes rise, can they save their marriage — and their lives?
What are your favourite sapphic wintry reads? Let us know in the comments!
